Priest Leonid, redemptorist from Ukraine province, participated in the 15th International seminar for priest in Medjugorje and gave the testimony, first to the other participants and then to Radio Station Mir Medjugorje. We publish the testimony as it was given:

Starting with Tuesday, June 15th when Novena to the Queen of Peace began, parishioners and pilgrims would meet every day at 4 p.m. at the Hill of Apparitions to pray the Rosary, as an act of special devotion to our God for all of the graces given through our Heavenly Mother. Evening prayer programme would start at 6 p.m. with prayer of the Rosary and with Holy Mass at 7 p.m. that was celebrated for first seven days by Medjugorje Franciscans. Professor and doctor, Fr. Tomislav Ivancic celebrated Holy Mass on last two days of Novena, as well as final Holy Mass on Anniversary day.

As a five-year-old, Christine Watkins was enchanted the night her family went to view an outdoor nativity scene in their Berkeley neighborhood. But when she asked her father who the man, the lady and the baby were, he said they were just part of a Christian fairy tale.

As high school students sometimes do, Emma Fradd got involved in the party scene. She refused to attend Mass, and rejected anything to do with the Church.

"My mom raised me as a Catholic, but when I got to high school I stopped going to church. A lot of my friends were atheist, and they had a lot of influence on me. I didn't believe in God at all," said Fradd, 20, who hails from Port Pirie, a city in South Australia.

Damir Jug and Stjepan Bozic walked to Medjugorje from town called Velika Gorica at the north of Croatia. They started their pilgrimage on May 1st and arrived on the Ascension Thursday, May 13th. Damir came to Medjugorje for the first time, while Stjepan was coming to Medjugorje before in the past. “Every man has his own personal wishes and desires, we felt in our hearts that we need to come, and thanks to God and Our Lady, here we are. The journey was not easy, we were adjusting to every situation that we would encounter as we travelled.” They prayed before the Statue of Our Lady and climbed the hills despite the rain and difficult weather conditions. Apart from many pilgrims from Croatia, this Feast brought also pilgrims from Italy, Belgium, Netherlands, France, England, Ireland, United States, Canada, Mexico, Germany, Romania, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland and China.

"Before coming to Medjugorje, I had sunk very low. My parents are atheists. When I was 9, they divorced on grounds of adultery. From that day, I let myself be carried away by all the evils of society. At 13, I started on drugs. My broken family had gradually reduced me to a state of fear and being turned in on myself, I moved forward without seeing, without living, like a ghost. 'Emptiness', that is the word which best described my inner state. I threw myself into the 'pleasures of the flesh' and went completely adrift. Last summer, I attempted suicide, and when I woke up at the hospital, I felt that life was horrible, with no way out, no future.

I still remember the first time I found a copy of Echo of Mary in the underground chapel of a Greek Orthodox church in my town. It was in 1997, in a little town in north-central Romania and I still hadn’t turned 17. I hungered for the living word and I needed to meet people who experience my same thirst; and this little publication was an immense gift. I immediately felt that Our Lady’s messages were nourishing me, freeing me, and immersing me in a Light which filled everything in me. Also the articles based on the witness of others and news within the Church gave me great joy for it made me understand that I wasn’t the only one to experience this intense desire for God, for holiness, and to surrender my own life totally to Him.

This period in which our Church celebrates the mystery of resurrection that lasts for fifty days was filled with many pilgrims in Medjugorje and press members from radio station “Mir” Medjugorje were able to find quite few interesting life experiences. Kim Yong Hwan, priest form Korea, said that he heard about Medjugorje in 2001 for the first time and in that year he was celebrating 25 years of his priesthood. At the same time, that was the year of great crisis for him, since he felt sort of spiritual emptiness in his vocation as a priest.

The Franciscan basilica at Tomislavgrad in Herzegovina, where the Croatian king, Tomislav, was crowned 900 years ago, saw a particularly solemn ceremony this year when a group of young men took their vows. Apart from the eight seminarians from Herzegovina, who were surrounded by the whole Franciscan family and a swarm of family members and friends, there were four brothers from abroad: three Americans and one Australian.